


Libet’s Delay

by cowlan



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Hand wavey medical condition, Hurt/Comfort, Memory Loss, Sickfic, Slow Burn, Terminal Illnesses, korra doesn’t recover after zaheer, sort of I guess idk, yes i wrote this while listening to EATEOT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:21:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27504469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cowlan/pseuds/cowlan
Summary: Korra doesn’t recover after Zaheer, Asami stays with her
Relationships: Korra/Asami Sato
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	Libet’s Delay

**Author's Note:**

> this is one of the first fics I’ve written with the intention of finishing. im kind of writing this to cope with my abuela dying a few weeks ago. i hope you can enjoy it.
> 
> please take care of yourselves <3

The libet’s delay is the moment between ones skin being touched and feeling said touch. A period of about half a second- though the brain receives the signal and responds to the stimulus after a just a hundredth of a second. A reflex response can occur within about a tenth of a second. Even the lightest stimulus makes it’s way through your skin, into your nerves and into your brain. All faster than a hummingbird can beat it’s wings once.

Though an odd bit of trivia, it is an immutable fact. It’s simply how things work, was what Asami Sato had learned at age 10 while pouring over her fathers discarded physiology magazines. She’d always had fixations on odd things like that as a child- and her father indulged her, buying magazines and books for her as soon as they were released. And Asami remembered, though she could no longer remember the feel of the magazine or how it looked, that it took half a second to feel touch.

It had been just under 5 days- healers had poured over her as she slept, having her sip broth she wouldn’t be able to keep down. Lucidity slipped in and out, though improving from a warm corpse to flittering lidded eyes. Asami had only snuck a glance at her through the doorway. Tenzin had promised to yell for her as soon as Korra woke up, which he kept saying was any day now.

Asami didn’t mean to stay there. Getting her room was almost an accident, but Senna had insisted on making her bed and bringing her tea that first afternoon. She came back across the wharf the second morning, a small bag with a nightdress in hand. Korra could wake up tonight, she told herself. She’d stay the night, just to make sure, and then hand her off to Katara.

But she slept in the third morning- Senna had brought more clothes for her (Baggy. She assumed they were Korra’s) Asami hadn’t realized it, but the cabinet beside the bed had begun to fill with her things. After waking, she talked to Tenzin and the healers, who invited her to eat. It was just common courtesy for her to stay the night, she told herself.

If she was being honest, Asami had no intention of leaving when she woke on the fourth day. Korra hadn’t woken yet, and Asami was... nervous to see her. She didn’t want to see Korra unconscious and lying on a sheet. Maybe it was selfishness, but Asami shrugged it off before going in to make her bath. 

Nobody questioned her when she stayed a fifth night.

**Author's Note:**

> the next chapters will be longer don’t worry


End file.
